Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 71.djvu/492

486 the museum garden, is shown in Fig. 2. Dr. Hanitsch is a graduate of the University of Jena, and was for many years demonstrator in zoology in the University College of Liverpool. The former director was the well-known ornithologist, Mr. W. Davidson.

This museum, oldest in its building (1877) and in some regards best of Asiatic museums, was built on the outskirts of the city in the middle of the old cinnamon gardens. It is especially important to the general visitor as giving him the only practicable glimpse of the antiquities of Ceylon. It stands back from the red road, its buff-colored and long two-storied facade appearing prominently against a setting of tropical trees. On the ground floor are arranged the antiquities: in one room are objects in precious metals and stones, arm-rings, necklaces, utensils, caskets, sword handles; and near by are figures dressed in Cingalese finery of early times; on another side is a library containing Ceylonica, and a mass of the ruler-shaped books with palm-leaf pages scratched with Sanscrit; on still another side, in an imposing gallery, is a collection of architectural and decorative objects in wood and stone, including the colossal lion brought from Pollonarna, on whose back the native kings sat when they administered justice. Here also is the beautiful window from the ruin of Yapahoo, and a huge portrait statue of a twelfth-century king. On the walls of the main staircase are copies of the frescoes of the caverns of Sigiri. The collection of antiquities extends even into the garden, where several of the larger statues and a shrine are exhibited. The upper story of the museum is devoted to natural history, and here the distinguished director, Dr. Arthur Willey, has arranged groups of animals to give the visitor an adequate picture of the wild life of Ceylon. Alcoholic and dried specimens are well displayed and labeled, and even living specimens are interspersed, as in a case containing leaf-resembling insects. Dr. Willey has taken greatly to heart the need of exhibiting living creatures in the interest of his museum and, in the garden adjoining his office, he has arranged a small menagerie, which has proved a great attraction no less to foreign visitors than to natives. Nor does Dr. Willey escape his living charges even when he goes to his bungalow, for there I saw a flue series of the rare lemur, Loris, as well also as a specimen of Ichthyopis glutinosa, the earthworm-like amphibian whose development was studied by the Sarazins.

No one should leave Ceylon before paying a visit to the renowned botanical gardens, with a small museum, at Peradeniya; for it is but seventy miles from Colombo and at a delightful altitude (1,500 feet). For here within a small area, one may see, with a minimum of discomfort, the rarest and most striking tropical plants, from minute orchids